From the fast, Satanic SoCal hardcore skate punk of Black Sails In the Sunset to the gothic post-punk debonaire at which they’ve found themselves on Silver Bleeds the Black Sun…, AFI have at this point essentially seen and done it all in the scene. Not only that, but they’ve withstood the test of time and every coming and going of trend — almost to vampiric effect — by surviving them through evolution. That just might be the key to what keeps making every chapter in the story that is their 33 years as a band feel new again.

This listen feels different, though — like one of the iconic sonic shapeshifters of the shadows’ most important next steps. Perhaps the revived energy comes from tasting new blood. Davey Havok, Jade Puget, Hunter Bergan and Adam Carson have now joined the on-point tastemaking roster of Run for Cover Records after years of searching for a new permanent mausoleum for their music across a handful of now-defunct major and independent punk labels who more or less treated their work with the same degree of excitement you’d assign to a legacy act. Instead, they’ve been celebrated like the punk gods they are in past, present, and future form across a modern digital and traditional album cycle rollout that has led to their return to the top of the rock charts. There’s substance behind the sound, too, of course.

Though Silver Bleeds the Black Sun… may stake its heart at the altar of Sisters of Mercy, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Bauhaus, you probably won’t be able to recount too many times where a band has made idol worship sound so form-fitting — never mind one in which they are reinventing themselves in their veteran stage of their career. Davey Havok’s vocals are supernatural, having aged like the finest of Bordeaux for the role, brooding behind clocks and worlds unmade in lower register and letting out a full moon howl upon the sight of holy visions and blasphemy. Puget’s razor-chorded guitar cuts straight into Bergan and Carson’s undead dance heartbeats and new wave synthesizers spanning voids, discovering a path of cohesion in their energy through and through the LP that’s arguably been missing in a few of their latter era efforts. It in turn unites AFI’s glossed arenacore conflagration with the timeless flame of goth rock, embodying the spirits who walked this plane before while ascending to their rightful place on the pulpit alongside them.

Highlights: “Behind the Clock”, “VOIDWARD, I BEND BACK”, “A World Unmade”

AFI’s Silver Bleeds the Black Sun… is available now on Run for Cover Records.

Buy | Stream